This paper discusses a novel approach to avoiding electrostatic hazards arising from the treatment of effluent in a fine chemicals manufacturing site. Whilst methods of avoiding electrostatic hazards for small vessels and pumping small quantities through pipes are simple, the approach for orders of magnitude increases in scale found in treatment plants required novel methods which were solved by the application of both basic physics and chemical engineering methods. (C) 2001 The Institute of Physics. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.